We hadn’t had a single bait touched for hours when we finally decided we’d had enough. I cranked in my lines for the trip home, as did my friend in the bow, Maurice. As I turned back to complain to him once again about our wretched luck, Mo’s rod was bent hard over and he struggled merely to hold on to it.     His drag was screaming and feeding line into a powerful run as I scrambled to clear my rig from the water. The brute then turned and headed back toward...

Maryland politicians and Department of Natural Resources officials are patting themselves on the back (and deservedly so) for the resurgence of the blue crab population this year, with a predicted abundance of juvenile crabs greater than has been seen in almost 20 years. Due to the restrictions placed on the harvest of female crabs beginning in 2008, the population of Maryland’s most famous crustacean has been rebounding smartly every year since. The total 2012 crab population is...

Since we spend so much time on the Chesapeake, boating anglers have a particularly important responsibility in maintaining habits that promote a cleaner, healthier Bay. The foremost of those is avoiding polluting behavior in the first place. The single most effective action any angler can take is avoiding and discouraging the use of older, two-cycle outboard motors. Fishfinder     The dogwood trees have blossomed, and the hickory shad run is red-hot. The Conowingo Dam, Deer...

Increased fees for hunting licenses and stamps died with the House Republican Caucus leading the fight to kill HP 1419 on March 26. The death was unexpected.     The first fee increases for hunting licenses and stamps in more than 20 years had been proposed by the Maryland Depart­ment of Natural Re­sources to counteract three forces: the long downward trend in hunting license revenues; a projected decline in federal matching monies; and the continued impact of a...